It's every little girl's dream to grow up and become a princess... but it doesn't usually take 60 years of waiting tables and slaving in a kitchen to make it happen.

However New Orleans chef Leah Chase, the inspiration for the latest Disney princess, says it was worth every minute of the wait to see her life story turned into a movie.

She is one of the most important cooks in America, having fed key members of the black civil rights movement in the 60s, Motown stars such as The Jackson Five in the 60s and 70s and US presidents spanning more than 40 years.

She also starred in Jamie Oliver's American Road Trip series but her biggest claim to fame is the recent Disney animated hit, The Princess And The Frog.

The studio based the lead character of Princess Tiana - a black kitchen hand who becomes a princess via a spell as a frog - on Leah after encountering her during research for the film's location, New Orleans.

The movie has become one of the most successful animated hits of recent years, so to mark its recent release on DVD, Disney invited the Daily Record to meet the real Princess behind the animation.

Most Scots probably won't have heard of 87-year-old Leah but in America she is a bigger culinary institution than Delia Smith, Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver put together.

She is Barack Obama's favourite southern chef and has also cooked for John F Kennedy and George W Bush, while she counts Oprah Winfrey among her celebrity fans.

Her pride and joy, Dooky Chase's Restaurant, is a local institution in New Orleans. It was forced to close after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the city five years ago.

It was shut for two years but the entire community - who have eaten at her side since World War II - gathered round to help fundraise for the rebuild and get the restaurant back to its former glory.

And it's the high regard she is held in by people across the States that made her the ideal inspiration for Princess Tiana.

Leah is flattered by the animated immortality and delighted to be a role model for young women. She said: "I was fascinated that someone would think anything in my life would be worth telling a story about.

"For me, the really wonderful thing was that they thought it was time to show a little black girl as a Princess - somebody who worked herself up and that could be a real inspiration to little black children to show them they could be anybody they wanted to be."

The first black Disney princess is a huge milestone for film fans and it's one that Leah could hardly have dreamed of growing up in Louisiana in the 20s.

Whites-only signs, laws and traditions were prevalent throughout the Deep South but Leah managed to overcome the racism and chauvinism of the time to succeed.

"I knew as soon as I stepped into a kitchen it was what I wanted to do. My first job was as a waitress in the 40s and normally they wouldn't have given that kind of job to a woman. Because there was a war on, they had to, and I stayed in the cooking business ever since," she recalled. She started cooking when she was five or six in her poverty stricken home just outside New Orleans, and got her start in restaurants in her 20s.

In 1945, she married husband Dooky, took over the kitchen in his family restaurant and a legend was born.

In the early days, it was music legends such was Count Basie, Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole who would line up to enjoy her cuisine.

As her reputation grew, the restaurant became a favourite in New Orleans and a hub of the black community. Much of the black civil rights movement was planned over her fried chicken and gumbo (a fantastic meaty soup full of creole spices).

"The civil rights men would come in for meetings and lunch," she said.

"They would get arrested then the next day, then they would come back after they had been released from jail.

"They would all be filthy, so I wouldn't let them in until they went round the back for cleaning." Martin Luther King's father, Big Daddy King would come in but Martin Luther King never ate here. He was a very private man."

In the 60s, she cooked for President John F Kennedy and The Jackson Five, and was immortalised in music in the Song Early In The Morning, made famous by Ray Charles.

President Bush, whom she described as "not a very good president but a very nice man", visited the restaurant and loved the food so much he hired her to cater for an international summit.

Her biggest fan is Obama, although she had to chide him over his eating style.

She said: "I love President Obama - he is a great man. After living through segregation and all the civil rights marches, I could hardly believe it when he became president. We were all crying here.

"But I had to tell him off when he came here. I served him up some gumbo and the first thing he did was to put hot sauce in it.

As we chatted, Leah's grandson Dooky, named after her husband, and assistant chef Cleo Robinson scurried around helping the grand old lady do another amazing lunch.

In one corner there was a huge vat of gumbo, due to be bagged up and shipped to California as a birthday treat for Motown producer Quincy Jones.

There were pictures of Bush and Obama with Leah in the hallway, while the colours and smells of the restaurant were incredible.

Flames from an oily shrimp pan leapt high to the roof while brightly coloured spices, herbs and peppers flew across the worktop. As a Scot in her kitchen, I got a warmer welcome than she would dish out to the most famous chef from our shores, as she is not a Gordon Ramsay fan.

She said: "I could never cook with him. If I did, he would have a pot of grease over his head. There is no need to talk to people the way he does.

"I don't know much about Scottish food but I'm always wanting to learn. I was once asked to judge a haggis contest but when I found out what it was made of, I said 'no thanks'."

Leah concluded: "I'm not a chef, I'm a cook.

"And that's why I think it is so strange that they chose my life for a movie princess.

hard and doing things for "But if the idea that you can get something in life by working hard and doing things for yourself can get across to one little girl because of it, then I'll be a happy woman."

1) Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the diced potatoes. Cook for five minutes.2) Add the shrimp, garlic and mushrooms.3) Toss in the green peas, white wine, parsley, salt and pepper and cook for five minutes.4) Serve up and enjoy.

If you don't like shrimp, you can use the same amount of chicken in the recipe instead